


Picture Me In The Trees

by neoqueentitania



Category: Sword Art Online (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Childhood, Childhood Friends, First Love, M/M, Song: seven (Taylor Swift), saoprideweek2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:42:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25840798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neoqueentitania/pseuds/neoqueentitania
Summary: To Kirito, grown-ups make the world more complicated than it needs to be. Tears can be healed with food, hands are meant to be held and best friends are forever. Maybe something else could last forever too.SAO Pride Week 2020, Day 3 - Childhood
Relationships: Eugeo & Kirigaya Kazuto | Kirito & Alice Zuberg | Alice Synthesis Thirty, Eugeo/Kirigaya Kazuto | Kirito
Comments: 4
Kudos: 61
Collections: SAO Pride Week 2020





	Picture Me In The Trees

**Author's Note:**

> Hello. I wrote this for the rainy day prompt, then I remember this song exists now and I rewrote the whole fic for the childhood prompt instead. Stream folklore.
> 
> (Fic loosely inspired by the second verse of "seven" by Taylor Swift.)

“Kirito! C’mon! Get up! We’ll be late! C’mon! Wake up! Wake up!”

Eugeo tugged at his friend’s arm, eventually waking a very sleepy young Kirito, who rolled out of bed and onto the floor. Eugeo’s house was nice, if a little crowded, and his bedroom floor was a soft carpet. His room always smelled like roses, which Kirito enjoyed, Eugeo’s mother put fresh ones in their vases every morning.

“I’m awake! What’s wrong?” Kirito asked, yawning cutely.

“We’re meeting Alice and she’s making lunch special!” Eugeo prompted. 

Kirito jumped up from the floor, grinning at the promise of food - he truly loved Alice’s sandwiches - and grabbed Eugeo’s hand, running out of the bedroom. Both boys stopped in the entryway of the house by the front door, stumbling as they tried to put their shoes on.

A tall, but still warm-looking brunette woman walked over to them, tutting lightly, “You boys really need to learn to do your laces, I’m not always going to be around to help you,” she told them as she gently took her son’s foot in her hand to help him.

“Mommy, we get to see Alice!” The boy smiled.

The front door opened and a man walked in, short in reality, but still threateningly tall to the boys, looming over the pair of them with an icy stare. Everyone’s heart caught in their throats, and Kirito watched as Eugeo’s smile faded into a look of disciplined terror.

“Did he spend the night?”

The woman nodded, “Yes, but-”

“In Eugeo’s room?”

“You’re being ridiculous, they’re chil-”

“Do you know how hard it is to explain to the men in town why their daughters aren’t fit for my son? Because he’s busy playing around with this boy to even look in a girl’s direction?”

“I play with girls, Father! We’re going to see Ali-”

“Shut it!” He barked, “I don’t care about what that little monster says, look what she’s done to you! You’ll all grow up miserable and alone! Wake up and live in the real world, Eugeo!”

He left the room as quickly as he came, his footsteps loud and booming through the house. Eugeo’s mother hurriedly tied their shoes and ushered the boys out the front door, begging them to stay safe and stay out long - her husband was a hard one to calm.

“Yes, Mother, I’m sorry for causing all this trouble,” Eugeo nodded his head solemnly before Kirito grabbed his hand again and lead him away from the house to the meadow they always met Alice in. Once they were a far enough way from Eugeo’s house, Kirito laced their fingers together while they walked. Eugeo gently squeezed his hand. Maybe things would be okay after all.

“I’m sorry your parents are always mad at you,” Kirito said eventually as they balanced themselves along an over-turned tree that had fallen across their path, and had thus been deemed as a new plaything for a few minutes before they got bored.

“It’s fine,” Eugeo shrugged, “It’s my fault anyway. They said so, it’s hard for them to find me a wife for someday because I’m always playing with you,”

Kirito frowned, pouting, “That’s a dumb reason. There’s gotta be something else they’re mad at, like they outgrew their most favourite pair of shoes, or they ate their favourite food and now they have to wait all week to go to the markets again to buy it,”

Eugeo laughed a little, albeit half-heartedly, then jumped from the trunk of the fallen tree, holding his hand out for Kirito to hold as they continued on their journey. Eugeo knew Kirito was trying to cheer him up, but he also knew well that he was the source of his parent’s arguments. He’d heard them screaming late at night months earlier, calling him names he wished he could forget, all because he’s said he wanted to be with Kirito forever.

“I got it! Your house is haunted!” Kirito announced.

Eugeo gave him a confused look, “What do you mean?”

“That’s why your dad’s always mad! Your house is haunted and the ghosts are making him angry! So if we get rid of the ghosts, he’ll be happy again!”

In Kirito’s mind, his plan made perfect sense. They could stay up really late one night until the saw a ghost, then they could catch it and tell it to stop making Eugeo’s family fight all the time. Maybe if it was a friendly ghost, they could invite it to have a picnic with them and Alice one time.

“I think that could work,” Eugeo hummed. 

They continued to chatter to each other as they walked down the pathway to the meadow, Kirito desperately trying to take Eugeo’s mind of the events of the morning. He suggested four possible ways to exorcise a ghost and another three ways of making friends with it, all of which earned a giggle from his friend.

To call Eugeo his friend was a little odd. He loved him more than it seemed like friends did. Eugeo’s parents had once told him that Eugeo would one day grow up and find a wife, and that she would become his priority and he would abandon Kirito, but Kirito couldn’t understand that. To him, he would always be the centre of Eugeo’s world, because Eugeo was the centre of his.

Even Alice didn’t come close to how he felt about Eugeo. She was funny and she made nice food, but she didn’t smell as nice as Eugeo did and she could be mean sometimes. Eugeo was always nice and always made time for Kirito and his plans, no matter how foolish they were - and his hair smelled like roses all the time.

“Hey, Eugeo, are we friends?” Kirito asked.

“Of course! Why, did I do something wrong?”

Kirito shook his head, “I like you a lot Eugeo. I think we should be best friends,”

“Okay! We can be best friends!” Eugeo grabbed his other hand and they hugged on the dirt path, smooshing their cheeks together and grinning as much as they possibly could. 

“Boys! Hurry up!’ Alice called from just ahead of them. They’d taken too long and she’d started to walk the path to find them. They apologised and Kirito explained what had happened in the morning, which made Alice apologise to Eugeo for being so harsh, and made him apologise for her apologising.

“I made some sandwiches, there’s steamed honey pies - they’re fresh - some fresh bread, some homemade cookies and some jam tarts! I made them all myself, except the bread, so I hope you like them,” 

Alice held the picnic basket under the boys’ noses, then ran to the meadow, both of them following quickly after her, the three of them laughing and having great fun, and the argument that was undoubtedly raging at Eugeo’s home slipped all of their minds.

Except Kirito’s. He kept thinking about it as they sat down to eat, feeling guilty that Eugeo had to go through that on a daily basis. It wasn’t fair. He’d done nothing wrong. It was all so unfair and miserable, even if Kirito himself wasn’t the one immediately suffering through it. His friend was hurting, and it was up to him to fix it somehow.

He just couldn’t work out how.

“Let’s all get a big house together,” Kirito said through a half-eaten honey pie. 

“Why?” Alice asked.

“Eugeo can live with us and he’ll never have to worry about his parents again! We get to make our own rules! Rules number one is we eat honey pies for breakfast every day!”

Eugeo giggled, taking a bite of another honey pie and licking his lips. Alice’s cooking was getting better every day.

“What’s the second rule?” The blond asked.

“Rule two is that Eugeo never has to cry ever again, and if someone makes him cry Alice beats them up!”

“Why me?” Alice’s face fell.

“Because you’re scary sometimes, especially when I do something wrong,” Kirito mumbled matter-of-factly. He went to reach for his fifth honey pie and the little girl swatted his hand away. The boy frowned, then Eugeo offered him his half-eaten one.

Kirito’s face lit up as he thanked him for the food, then scoffed it down before Alice could protest, coughing slightly when he ate too big of a piece. Eugeo patted him on the back gently, shaking his head.

They finished their lunch quickly and Alice decided they were going to go for a walk by the lake, so the three of them strolled hand-in-hand past the crystal water. They would occasionally make a remark about a butterfly or flower or the shape of the clouds above them, but Kirito wasn’t paying attention.

His mind was solely focused on Eugeo. It wasn’t fair that his parents fought him on every part of his life. They were kids, couldn’t they find themselves a little before the world forced them to exist the way it saw fit? Why did Eugeo have to hide part of who he was? 

It was a childish idea, even his young mind could recognise that, but he was serious. When they were a little older than the tender age of seven, they could get a little house and live together, the trio as they always were. Maybe then he could find out what was more than being best friends?

“Kirito,” Alice grabbed one of his arms, Eugeo grabbing the other while they helped him onto a wooden swing, tied by old ropes to the Gigas Cedar’s low branches - still not low enough for little legs to reach without assistance.

Kirito stood on the swing, then helped Eugeo clamber onto the plank next to him, both holding the rope and each other, while Alice pushed them.

The wind rushed through their hair, sending locks of black and blond hair streaking against their faces, both laughing and feeling alive for a moment, if a moment was all the world gave them.

The swing brought them higher until it felt like they were flying through the air like free birds, parents and worries and closets a million miles away from them.

Kirito looked over at Eugeo, laughing so innocently, and made his mind up that nothing would separate them. Not parents, not time, not the taboo index. Nothing would break them.

“Hey, Eugeo!” Kirito almost lunged forward from trying to swing them higher.

“Yeah, Kirito?” 

“I think I know what more than best friends are!”

Alice pushed them higher again, seemingly the entirety of Rulid underneath their feet, and for a second Eugeo lost his grip on the rope, holding tight onto Kirito. Trying to support the weight of them both was too much for Kirito, who fell back into the soft grass beneath them, Eugeo landing on top of him with a soft thud.

“What’s more than best friends?” Eugeo questioned.

Kirito cupped his friend’s face in his hands, then pressed a kiss to the tip of his nose, making them both blush as red as the poppies a few yards away.

“That,” he said.

Alice stuck out her tongue, “Boys! You’re getting your clothes all dirty! Get out of the dirt!”

They looked at each other, then Alice was joining them on the ground within seconds, all laughing and tickling each other, Eugeo cuddling into Kirito’s side so he was just out of Alice’s reach.

They were children, playing in the grass on a warm afternoon, and that was all they needed to be. No rules, no worries, no deadlines. All they had to do was exist, and for that blissful afternoon, that was enough.

Years would go by, and they would all grow and change, but Kirito never lost his childhood determination, Alice never lost her sense of responsibility for the boys who became her brothers, and Eugeo never lost his pride, no matter how long it took for him to find it.

He never lost his first love either, eventually waking next to him in the mornings, still the same sparkle in his eyes he’d had years ago, and still the same gentle kiss on his nose to remind him that he was there, and he was loved, and that he’d never have to cry, or hide in the closet.

And that there were things - and love - far better than anything he thought possible when he was seven.


End file.
